To evolve Advanced Telekinesis into Supreme Telekinesis, all five skills related to telekinesis had to be raised to Advanced.
Telekinesis - Pressure (壓)
Telekinesis - Expulsion (黜)
Telekinesis - Wave (波)
Telekinesis - Weight (重)
Telekinesis - Force (强)
Only after raising all five of them to Advanced would the conditions be met to evolve into the highest-tier skill, Supreme Telekinesis.
Telekinesis was famous even among highest-tier skills for having no real weaknesses, precisely because its evolution conditions were so demanding.
Long range, wide area of effect, and even the destructive power that had barely been considered its flaw increased drastically upon evolution, while its transition between offense and defense was among the fastest even among highest-tier skills.
If one could just raise it to the highest tier, it truly became an all-purpose skill.
Silbert had worked tirelessly for that.
First, he evolved the Telekinesis skill that was practically his symbol into Advanced Telekinesis.
Advanced Telekinesis - Pressure (壓), Advanced Telekinesis - Expulsion (黜), Advanced Telekinesis - Wave (波), Advanced Telekinesis - Weight (重).
Of the remaining five, he had raised four to Advanced.
Only one remained.
Telekinesis - Force (强). Before long, he should be able to combine them all and evolve it into Supreme Telekinesis.
If that happened, would his military might not become roughly equal to Daphne, who possessed Rafflesia?
He had hoped so.
Was that why?
Why he felt so unbearably regretful.
“I told you, hyung. I said you should stop obsessing over Telekinesis and raise something else. If you had, you’d have had at least one highest-tier skill long ago.”
“Use your skill one more time instead of wasting time talking nonsense.”
“……Let’s just log out, hyung.”
Kemen and Silbert’s gazes turned forward at the same time.
“Our compatibility with that thing is way too bad.”
Long black hair and a slender frame.
He could not bring himself to look all the way up to its face, but it was a boss monster with outstanding beauty.
That thing was clearly different from the Abyss monsters they had seen so far.
“That thing…… is thinking.”
Unlike the others that merely howled and charged according to instinct, each step it took was composed.
It must know.
That there was no being here capable of opposing it.
It knew that the two people before it were the strongest in the area, and that was why it was pursuing only them.
Had there ever been a monster like that?
A mere monster, yet it dared make him unable to meet its eyes.
The dignity and ease that could be felt in its faintly visible gait—was it truly a monster?
No, in the first place, he had never even heard of a monster with an appearance like that existing.
So.
“Let’s log out.”
Kemen spoke soothingly to Silbert, who had been with him since this was still just a game.
But what came back was a firm answer.
“You log out and call Daphne or whoever else. I think we’ll be fine as long as we can break through that damned plant.”
“You’re going to keep fighting that monster?”
Only then did Silbert’s gaze turn toward him.
“Then how long are we supposed to do nothing but log out? What do you think that’s going to accomplish? Get a grip, Ubin. Variables are going to keep appearing, and monsters even stronger than that thing are going to pop out.”
“……But there’s no way.”
“Then we have to find one somehow.”
They were different from the Awakened of the outside world, who played at power and were drunk on fame that had gone far beyond reason.
Because they would not know.
Even Gwon Ubin, who had been by his side for a long time, was someone who had quit Bentair halfway through.
Even if they understood it in their heads, they did not truly fear the future.
But those from 1st to 5th place, the so-called highest-ranking rankers, were different.
They were the ones who had struggled desperately until the very moment the game finally came to an end.
Because they knew how horrific destruction was and how immense the things they had to face were, even imagining that becoming reality and crashing down upon them made their knees tremble.
“If you can’t move forward, you’ll only fall behind. And it’s obvious what waits at the end of falling behind.”
Everyone above Silbert probably thought the same way.
Was that not why they were trying so hard?
Silbert himself, and Daphne too.
Ailights was…… dead, but the two above him must also be pushing themselves this far because they knew the dreadful future.
“So you log out and request support. I’ll take that monster down here somehow.”
The skill activated at the same time as his words.
「Skill - ‘Advanced Telekinesis - Weight (重)’ has been activated.」
Kooong—!
Telekinesis pressed down on the head of the Abyss boss monster, the Elf Who Had Once Been Most Noble.
It was like gravity itself; everything within the skill’s range grew heavier, and things with weak durability crumbled as they were.
But even within the domain of telekinesis that crushed even the air, the boss monster, the Elf Who Had Once Been Most Noble, did not stop walking, and the dignity imbued in it remained unchanged.
Even the plants blooming with every step it took showed no sign of being affected at all.
“Argh……!”
At that, Kemen stepped forward, irritably mussing up his own hair.
“If I go now, how long do you think it’ll take to bring anyone back!”
“What about logging out?”
“I won’t! I’m not doing it!”
He shouted so and stretched out both hands.
「Skill - ‘Blade Rain’ has been activated.」
A dozen or so blades appeared in that direction.
They were not ordinary, mediocre blades.
They were solid blades created as a skill.
A dozen or so blades capable of clashing even with a knight’s aura poured toward the advancing monster.
Kaaang—!
The result was as expected.
“Damn it…… I told you, it really doesn’t work.”
“Just do what you can for now!”
「Skill - ‘Advanced Telekinesis - Weight (重)’ has been activated.」
「Skill - ‘Advanced Telekinesis - Pressure (壓)’ has been activated.」
The air was crushed down, and the ground caved in.
Of course, not a single attack had any effect.
* * *
“Haa…… I really met the wrong hyung.”
Kemen let out a sigh and a lament at the same time.
His entire body, including his hands and feet, was tightly wrapped in enormous vines without a single gap.
“Fucking life. To think I’d die here.”
Even if he had not been wrapped in vines, he would have looked much the same.
His fingertips and toes had already turned to stone, and he had lost all sensation in them.
He had thought that if he met its eyes, he would turn into a stone statue in an instant.
It was a misjudgment caused by lack of information.
Hadn’t warning messages rung out like mad when it first appeared?
Saying that a “mental attack has been detected.”
Since he had looked into its eyes right from the start, turning to stone or not was only a matter of time.
This was a type of mental attack.
And yet it was also an absurdly fraudulent ability that hardened the body.
As expected, this had been a fight that was impossible from the start.
“I told you we should log out earlier. What is this?”
Beside Kemen, Silbert was in a similar state, covered in plants.
Only their faces were barely exposed.
“……I’m sorry.”
Could Silbert have known things would turn out this way?
Could he have not valued his own life?
He, too, had intended to try as much as he could, then run if it truly did not work.
He had simply hated the idea of fleeing without even trying to the limits of his strength. He had simply known that he would never grow that way.
But who could have known that at a completely unexpected moment, his hands and feet would harden like stone?
To log out, one had to move one’s hand.
If not a hand, then a foot; if not a foot, then one had to use one’s face to press the notification window that asked whether to log out. Only then would it activate.
But by the time he realized his hands and feet had stiffened, his actions were already restricted because of it, and that brief hesitation was like eternity to his opponent.
Squeeeze— By the time he came to his senses, his whole body had become a mass of vines.
On top of that, these vines constricted his body while greedily sucking away the mana inside him.
His mana value dropped rapidly, and his strength drained away along with it.
The outcome had been decided in an instant.
It meant he could not even use the method called logging out.
The moment he realized that was also the moment he realized he was truly going to die now.
“What do you have to be sorry for, hyung? In the end, I’m the one who didn’t go…….”
“……I guess I was being stubborn. I thought I might grow in a moment of crisis.”
“Haa……. I told you to stop reading so many novels. We’re just people who got lucky and gained abilities while playing a game. We’re not special.”
“You’re right.”
The reason they had given up was probably because they could no longer feel anything below their necks.
In Silbert’s field of vision, he could see the skin along Kemen’s neck turning to stone.
“Ah, Mom must be waiting. I should’ve listened when she told me to stop doing dangerous things…….”
Kemen’s face began to harden.
The gray stone spread over his forehead and even over his eyes.
“I don’t want to die…….”
With those words as his last, Kemen became a complete stone statue.
There was nothing Silbert could do except smile bitterly.
Even as he saw the monster quietly approaching.
The fact that he still could not look into its eyes was humiliating, but he could do nothing.
Because he, too, had turned to stone from the neck down.
He could only stare blankly up at the sky, waiting for the death that approached.
Recalling the days gone by as he felt his body gradually hardening……
“Huh? What’s that?”
A small golden light brushed past Silbert’s gaze as he stared hollowly at the sky.
The faint light expanded in the blink of an eye, growing until it filled the heavens.
“…….”
Before he knew it, it was filling the surroundings.
A light that somehow felt warm and put his heart at ease.
It would not have been strange for him to be startled by it, yet Silbert’s gaze remained fixed on the sky as if nailed there.
Because from the very beginning, his eyes had been turned to the sky, and so he had seen it.
The form of a goddess faintly visible between the clouds.
The golden hand that had begun there.
Was it a miracle of the goddess?
And at the same moment the golden light settled, the endless noise abruptly ceased as well.
The cries of Abyss monsters that had continued without rest from far away, or from quite nearby.
They vanished in an instant.
Had they perhaps melted away beneath the goddess’s golden touch?
When he lowered his gaze with that question in mind, he could not help but be shocked once again.
The boss monster that had been full of composure from its first appearance until the end.
The so-called Elf Who Had Once Been Most Noble was clutching its head and suffering.
Its composure and dignity were nowhere to be seen; it looked as though it were struggling desperately not to die before an enormous power.
The miracle did not end there.
The petrification that had been progressing at the same time also stopped.
His skin had turned to stone all the way to the tip of his chin, but it did not rise any farther than that.
The thought that immediately came to mind was of those who had become stone statues.
Could they perhaps have returned as if by a miracle too?
With that thought, he rolled his eyes and looked to the side, but.
‘…….’
Those who had already turned to stone did not return to being human.
A miracle to that extent had not occurred.
‘What happened…… The monsters? Are they all dead?’
He had never imagined that being unable to move his body would be this frustrating.
All he could do was speculate.
Golden light, the height of splendor and sanctity.
It was certain that this had an effect on the Abyss monsters.
The cries of the other monsters had disappeared in an instant, and the boss monster that had seemed so monstrous was suffering right before his eyes.
It seemed to have other effects as well.
Hadn’t his heart, which had been turbulent and cluttered before death, become unbelievably peaceful?
Then who had performed such a miraculous act?
No one came to mind.
The pope of the Holy Kingdom? He did not have the ability, and there was no way he would be here.
The newly born saintess? Cardinal Harold? Or another possessor he had failed to identify?
Thanks to his calmed heart, thoughts passed through his mind quickly, but none of them fit.
And he was soon able to learn the answer to that question.
“What a dreadful sight.”
A voice came from behind him.
In the sound of footsteps approaching, there was leisure and confidence.
“Of all places, a boss-class one appeared here?”
As the voice drew closer, Silbert’s eyes began to shake violently.
He realized who the owner of the voice was.
Even while thinking it was impossible, part of him accepted it, and that contradiction soon became dissonance.
Step— The sound of walking drew even closer.
When it came right beside Silbert, he finally let out a hollow laugh.
A familiar back in splendid attire stood before him.
Hio Pavlenko.
The rank 1 Supreme Heavenly Demon.
The very person who had caused this sacred miracle.
“You resist the heavens. This is a first.”
The sight of him arriving so calmly in a world that had settled entirely into gold suited him rather well.
But he was clearly off guard.
For the monster that had been clutching its head in agony suddenly snapped it up and looked at Hio.
Sirbert shouted urgently.
“Don’t look into its eyes!”
And Hio’s response to that hurried warning was—
“Mm?”
Utterly indifferent.
Even after facing those blackened eyes and the bewitching woman’s face head-on, he remained perfectly calm.
Beyond that—
“Sirbert. You were alive? No, are you dead?”
Was he not speaking to him as if nothing had happened?
The whole sequence was so natural that it made Sirbert look as though he had made a fuss over nothing.
If not for the lifelike statues filling the surroundings, he might have let his guard down for a moment.
“……On the verge of dying. More importantly, have some sense of danger. It’s a boss-class monster.”
“A monster…… Yes, a monster.”
“It’s a type I’ve never seen before. Its name is the Elf Who Was Once the Noblest. This fellow beside me found that out at the cost of his life.”
He rolled his eyes toward Kemen, who had become a statue with that same hollow expression, and continued.
“It controls plants, and if you meet its eyes even once, petrification begins—but it’s classified as a mental attack. And if you get caught by these vines even once, your mana gets absorbed, and its base stats also seem to be above the limit……”
He tried to convey everything he knew, but Hio was no longer listening to the rest.
What he had focused on was the name.
“The Elf Who Was Once the Noblest……”
Hio turned his gaze again.
Before him was the monster, still writhing in pain.
“I see.”
Sirbert still could not understand.
Had it not been an Abyss monster so powerful it felt hopeless?
Had it not been a type of monster he had clearly never seen before in his life?
And yet—
“Your role is being carried on well by Isidore……”
Why was Hio saying such things to the monster, as though he found it so pitiful?
It was not as if the monster could understand his words.
It merely continued to struggle against the golden divinity.
“It’s all right.”
Hio stood before the suffering monster.
Looking down at the Elf Who Was Once the Noblest, he reached out a hand.
At that, the vast golden domain narrowed.
The divinity that had become that much denser was gathering here.
“You worked hard.”
Those were his last words.
The monster’s agonized thrashing abruptly ceased, and it lifted its head—no, the elf who had once, at some point, been the noblest.
Its eyes, stained by the Abyss and covered entirely in black, gazed at Hio for an instant.
“……”
Then it collapsed helplessly.
Like a puppet with its strings cut.
Like a person whose soul had left their body.
Hio silently watched the monster that had crumpled in such a way.
For a long while, he merely looked down at it.
What thoughts had he fallen into?
Knowing nothing, Sirbert left Hio be.
Because he seemed lost in something deep.
And so one minute passed.
Two minutes passed. Three minutes……
……Wasn’t this taking too long?
Even though the boss monster was dead, Sirbert’s petrified body showed no sign of returning to normal, so he too began to grow anxious.
In the end, unable to bear it any longer, Sirbert cautiously opened his mouth.
“Um…… you haven’t forgotten about me, have you?”
At that, Hio’s gaze turned toward Sirbert, and a short exclamation escaped his lips.
“Ah, right.”